KUALA LUMPUR (10 MAY 2010) – “Our sincere apologies for the mess up,” said Nigeria coach Danjuma Fatauchi of his team’s failure to arrive on time for their opening Group B match in the Thomas Cup competition yesterday.
“It was never our intention to let this happen. It is an honour to have qualified for such a prestigious tournament like the Thomas Cup. And we were all excited for this trip to show that we are another badminton playing nation that is among the elite group to make the Thomas Cup Finals,” Danjuma.
“We ran into problems when the flight from Lagos to Qatar was cancelled. Efforts to reschedule our flights on other airlines were futile. But even though we were late in arriving into Kuala Lumpur, we are glad that we finally made the trip here.
“Our quarter-final hopes are over but we hope that we have learned something from our match against Japan."
Nigeria’s No 1 Fagbemi Olaoluwa, however, was no match against Japan’s No 1 Kenichi Tago who romped to a 21-10, 21-14 win in only 24 minutes.
Japan stretched their lead to 2-0 when Kenichi Hayakawa-Kenta Kazuno beat Adamu Ibrahim-Edicha Ocholi 21-5, 21-13. Sho Sasaki made it 3-0 for Japan with a 21-14, 21-14 win in the second singles.
Earlier, the the World Badminton Federation (BWF) announced that no matter what the outcome of the Japan-Nigeria match, Japan would still be credited with a 5-0 win after the Nigerians failed to arrive in time for the opening match against Malaysia.
Malaysia were awarded the tie with a 5-0 win and 21-0, 21-0 scoreline in all individual matches.
BWF executive officer Thomas Lund said each of the individual matches scores will count towards the World Ranking.
